By Dylan Bryant (Music Editor)

Having released their third studio album ‘From 2 to 3’, indie-rock quartet Peach Pit have become a household name in the indie rock scene, racking up 100’s of millions of streams on Spotify alone and over 200,000 Instagram followers.

I had the chance to catch up with the band’s frontman Neil Smith, ahead of their show at Brighton’s Concorde 2.

I started by asking if Peach pit had been to Brighton before.

“I have been to Brighton before. We played here a few years ago at The Great Escape Festival. We’ve played a few shows here. It’s chill. It’s a very beautiful city.”

Sat backstage at Concorde 2, we overlook the beach on a beautiful sunny day in Brighton and Neil confesses; 

“It’s gorgeous out there. Actually, we went across the street to the beach, and I just impulsively was like, I have to go swimming. I just went down to my underwear and jumped in. You know, you get the salt in your hair, the curls. The curls really come out. It’s perfect.”

Neil’s demeanour is effortlessly friendly and cool. Discussing the UK tour, he says; 

“It’s been awesome. I guess it’s been like four years since we were able to play over here. And it’s just fun. I think British teenagers are way crazier than American and Canadian ones. They know how to party way earlier than we did or something. We played in Leeds a couple of nights ago and there was full on circle mosh pits for every single song. I mean, if anyone’s not familiar with our music, we’re not the loudest band. So, it was super cool. It was really fun.”

The new album brings a refreshing new sound and is an easy listen for anyone craving those chill summer feels. The opening track ‘Up Granville’ is a personal highlight and Neil discusses finding a UK Granville Street in Bristol, and the songs meaning;

“When we were in Bristol yesterday, we were heading towards a Banksy that we found on Google Maps. When we were walking there, I found Granville Street. I took a picture of it because Granville Street is the street that I lived on in Vancouver. That’s what that song is about. So, I just saw it and I was just like, f**k yeah, snap a little pic. Although, the Granville street that I found in Bristol is very different from the street that I live on. This one had a couple of nice little flats on it and a convenience store. The one I lived on in Vancouver is like nightclub city. It’s pretty gross.”

Discussing the bands third album name ‘From 2 to 3’, he says;

“‘From 2 to 3’ was the first song that I wrote for the album. It’s the title track of the record. It’s about being awake from 2am till 3am. I thought that’d be a cool album title, because it’s kind of like a double entendre for our second and third record as well. Maybe it’s a little too clever. I don’t know if I like it that much anymore. But it works.”

Having released their new album in very different circumstances to their pandemic album ‘You and Your Friends, Neil discusses the experience of releasing music during Covid;

“It was really weird. Everyone was stuck inside. In some ways, it almost benefited us. Everybody was at home and couldn’t leave or do anything. All I was doing was talking on FaceTime all the time, or just on my phone looking at Instagram. I feel like people were just glued to their phones. In some ways, I think it helped people find our music or listen to music more. I’m not exactly sure. But anyway, it felt like the end of the world at the time. Two years later, finally coming back here, and being able to play all these shows feels good. We made it through. Everything’s awesome. And we’re really lucky.” 

Discussing music that he listened to and discovered during the pandemic, he says;

“I think honestly, I only listened to The Beatles the entire pandemic. I wish I could give you a good answer of new bands that I listened to. But over the past couple of years, I’ve only been listening to classic rock and what I guess you would consider ‘oldies’ nowadays. But Chris and his fiancé have a band called ‘Babe Corner’. Lindsey, who Chris is getting married to is a super talented songwriter. They’ve got a new record coming out. So, I would recommend anyone to take a listen to what they have out already. They’re called ‘Babe Corner’. They’re really awesome.”

Now, armed with three albums, and so many more songs to choose from; I finished by asking about picking the setlist for live shows;

“We thought it would be kind of weird. I mean, we went from having an album and an EP, which isn’t that many songs, to having three records and an EP. It added a lot of songs to it; like 20 Something songs. In some ways, it’s been kind of chilled.  This is one of our first big headlining tours that we’ve done, and so we get to play for an hour and a half. So, we still get to play lots of songs. We pretty much just go down the list of all our songs. We can tell which ones we have to play every night. We try to have a good flow of songs that are upbeat and also chilled out. The next tour, we’re going to play a lot from the new record, because we’re only playing maybe five songs off this new album on this tour.”

Peach Pit played an amazing show at Brighton’s Concorde 2, and it was great to catch up with Neil.

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